It’s mostly the naval stuff that’s changing, so if you want to focus a lot on the Pacific or something like that, maybe wait? I think it’s a great experience right now, though, so I don’t think it would be a bad time to start having fun over the holidays!
And if somehow you run out of content in HOI4, the Kaiserreich mod is terrific.
I’m not Kevin, but just jump in! 95% of the game will be the same, and it’s already alot of fun and brimming with content.
Agreed. They may be having trouble nailing down this particular DLC, but I can’t imagine that alone is going to spell any sort of trouble for future DLCs. Whether the design lead (it’s still podcat, right?) gets the same amount of rope next time is another matter altogether though.
I guess i figure when they’ve gotten to the point where they are doing focus trees on Mexico and add minelayers and minesweepers to grand strategic game, they’ve run out of obvious things to do.
Sure they could improve the AI, but philosophically Paradox doesn’t charge for AI upgrades. I’m obviously hard core on the game, so I’ll buy whatever they put out. But typically for Paradox game like EU or Stellaris, I’m a lot more selective they need to be either really cheap or something is really important.
I hope you are right, I’m just surprised there would be business case for more DLC. The number of players is certainly an important point, but EU IV has been out forever, and HOI IV is much much better game than Stellaris.
I have tried multiple times to get into HOI but bounced off time and again. Gave up on it. Only so much time and mind space in one man’s life.
I miss reading those gloriously mad AARs. Remember Lum the Mads Arsenal of Democracy series? Glorious.
Go on, press that screenshot button and write some explanation. Massive kudos awaits ;)
The obvious DLC that hasn’t been done is one for the Soviets. Plus I imagine there still may be an airwar makeover in the vein as MtG.
If you all haven’t seen Death of Stalin go watch it. General Zhukov cracked me up in it and Steve Buschemi/Michael Palin are awesome.
I floundered around in this for about 20-30 hours when it first came out. It feels like it should be really great once it clicks (as with EU4, which took me over 30 hours). Looking to dive back in until Stellaris 2.2 is patched up to snuff (I guess a few weeks). Any good guides/tips out there for a relative beginner?
I happen to have all the DLC, inexplicably…! (Really - not sure if I somehow bought a higher end on release on accident that includes everything? Definitely not my style with any game…)
If you just want to learn the basics like the UI, how production works, and fight a few small wars then Brazil is the CK2 Ireland or EU4 Portugal. If you’re ready for a real game, a lot of people recommend Germany. Sure, you might very well lose your first game, but it puts you square in the driver’s seat and gives you the manpower and industry to play around with all the toys.
I like the new emphasis on zones and screening. A more abstract model allows things to work a bit more realistically, instead of having battleships firing their heavy guns at enemy DDs.
I would only play germany if that’d allow me to throw the nazis in a dungeon and join it to the communist internationale.
You can throw the Nazis in a dungeon, but Germany ends up being either authoritarian (Kaiser) or a democracy in that path, IIRC.
That DD sounds terrific!
Wish this was out right now.
I guess I haven’t played enough of this game to understand what is/is not possible, but I’m with you. I’ve been reading a lot of Harry Turtledove lately and I’d like to recreate alternate histories.
With each DLC, they redo some existing countries focus trees and add focus trees for others. Usually this includes alternative history paths. Though now that I think about it, the alt-history is usually tied to the DLC (the next DLC has fascist and communist paths for UK and USA for instance).
Lots of mods have alt-history paths to the base game, tough of these I’ve only played Kaiserreich, which is basically the grand-daddy of alt-history.
Yes, I really like the new approach. I also want to compliment them on the structure of this Developer Diaries.
ts best to start by looking at problems in the old system so you can see how we have tried to solve them and iterate. We identified the following:
- Battles are extremely decisive so tiny mistakes have bad consequences
- Combats tend to snowballs as everyone and their mother’s fleet pile in
- A big fleet was always better, together with the above point promoting doomstacking
- The interface gets very confusing as ships close with each other. Distance overall is very hard to show and balance.
- It is easy to miss a combat happening while busy elsewhere.
- Its “simulation nature” made balancing an incredibly hard problem. Resulting in things like the all-battleship fleets performing well.
I find very it very encouraging when a developer clearly lays out. Here is the problem that we think players have with the game and this is how we fix it.
I think the only other problem I had with Naval system that I didn’t understand, it figuring out which type of admiral I should assign to a fleet, other than seawolf for sub-packs.
Still no release date?
Nope, not yet. I’m guessing February or March but it’s hard to tell with the Christmas break coming up. I was real close on predicting the Stellaris expansion release date but I have less of a feel for this one!